If you are driving through Breezewood, Pennsylvania, it’s probably because you have to.
The off ramp from the Pennsylvania Turnpike to I-70 funnels you through a strip of truck stops, hotels and restaurants. If you have time, you might stop for a quick cup of coffee and a fill-up, but soon enough, you’ll be on your way out, never realizing that beyond this busy strip, Breezewood is a struggling rural area.
Breezewood doesn't have a library, city hall or even a grocery store, but people still live there.
There are many families who live in town or at the local trailer park, as well as more secluded families who live in the countryside. There's also a steady flow of transients passing through town.
Sadly, many of these people suffer from poverty, as well as something much worse: spiritual brokenness.
Yet, within this community there is a small group of believers sharing the hope of Christ with their neighbors.
Breezewood Community Church has been around since 1973, but the church has never had their own full-time pastor. Over the years, they’ve grown a bit with part-time preachers, but in recent years they’ve struggled without any pastoral leadership.
That’s why they reached out to Village Missions.
While the church still awaits full-time Village Missionaries, Associate Village Missionaries Terry and Martha Major drive over an hour each way every Sunday and Wednesday to teach, preach and visit the congregation.
A Neglected Mission Field
Many people don’t see rural North America as a mission field. That’s why the cities of North America are saturated with ministries for children, adults, homeless and imprisoned.
And yet, there are hundreds–even thousands–of little communities across the United States and Canada that have little-to-no gospel presence. They are withering in poverty, crime and spiritual darkness with no one to show them the light of Jesus Christ.
Some of these places, like Breezewood, have a small remnant of believers, yet even they are searching for full-time missionaries to lead them in ministry.
If we do not go to these struggling churches, who will?
Who will look past the neon lights and fast food signs of a truck stop town and see the great opportunity to reach so many with the gospel of Jesus Christ?
We need more men and women to take up the high calling and invest their lives in these rural places. Will you bring the gospel to a small town like Breezewood? Will you take up the call and share the love of Christ with those who have been ignored too long?
And we need partners who will help us provide the salary so that Breezewood has a dedicated, full-time missionary pastor. You will be making an investment that reaps eternal dividends!
To some, Breezewood, Pennsylvania might just be an inconvenient truck stop, but to God, it is a town of souls that need to hear the Good News!
